Branding services

Identity is like a made to measure glove

Our specialty is Corporate Identity; in this area we have undertaken high-performance work for organizations from various sectors and to various scales. We have experience in developing brands for products, services, events, awards, professional associations, institutions, companies, business groups and the combination of many of these typologies in complex systems. For the completion of these projects, our team develops management models and working structures appropriate to each specific case. ArnulfoGráfico Estudio offers clients a portfolio of specialized services, which allow for appropriate solutions based on the nature of the visual identification task. We start with an analysis of the particular situation of the «requesting party», perform the appropriate diagnosis and draw up the relevant intervention strategy.

We take care to convert internal knowledge and insight into a coherent positioning and give the brand a clear, consistent and enduring visual expression, focused on the strategic positioning of our clients.

More than ten years of uninterrupted work in this field have allowed us to successfully undertake projects of all complexities, aimed at the long-term competitiveness and successful performance of the brands we develop.

Naming

An identifying sound

To create a name is to create a brand. Except in this case, it is a verbal brand, an identifying sound with performance parameters similar to those that govern the development of visual brands. The simplicity that contributes to memorability is common to both types of identifier; the pronounceability of the name is comparable to the reproducibility of a logo and the euphony – sound harmony – of the former to the graphic quality of the latter. Both creative processes have in common the moment of choosing the suggestive or arbitrary character the symbol will have in relation to the entity it represents.

The naming process naturally precedes the development of the graphic brand and, paradoxically, the certainty that the name will have a visual expression in the future, conditions its creation process. The repetition of characters or syllables, or the combination of letters with common «anatomical» features, are desirable in the design of a logo, and this is well known by any designer developing a name while considering the logo that will follow.

The creation of commercial names also occurs under unique conditions and shares the strategic character of the visual identifiers. With brand names, a series can also be achieved based on the declension of a word, for which these are key factors when structuring the brand architecture.

Other sound identifiers include mottos or slogans, which are also associated with companies, institutions and other entities. Given the similarity of the creative process of these with that of naming, examples have also been included in the following gallery:

Diagnosise

The order of factors alters the product

In the field of brand design and visual identity systems, clients often arrive with an existing graphic brand or a series of these, frequently accompanied by a corporate visual communication system. Usually, they seek specialist support due to nonconformities with these, usually based on the hypothesis that the problem is down to outdated symbols and a change is required. In many cases, the designer acts according to the instructions of the client, without a previous stage of analysis of the problem, or rather of his own formulation of the matter based on his professional perspective.

Without ignoring the hypotheses of the client, our team concentrates on collecting all the existing information regarding the brand system in question, while also relevant is the relative position the entity occupies in the branded world of its sector and the observation of this, before coming to hasty conclusions or skipping to the following stage of visualization.

Brands are subject to an evaluative process that allows us to attain an exact idea of their technical and communicational performance, that is, the nature of the problem. This evaluation process is based on the methodology and parameters outlined in the book «La marca Corporativa» by professors Norberto Chaves and Raúl Belluccia.

Before and after

Like divas, at times brands go under the knife or retouch their makeup

Brands need to appear young and full of life at all times. None escapes this need; even historically established or traditional brands must appear «new», although expressed with codes of the past. But the reality is that graphic brands grow old. Some do so faster than others, but time is unforgiving in all cases. This, together with the changing information platforms in which they are inserted, with their own reproduction requirements, the changes of direction of the corporate profile of the entity they represent, and any other defect that may arise in their technical performance, means that from time to time, it is necessary to «retouch them».

At ArnulfoGrafico Estudio we carefully select the most appropriate redesign strategy for each case. This strategy can range from the brand looking the same, but younger, to one that demands a radical change in the visuality of the identifier; always following the key principle that the «after» surpass the «before», in benefit of the client’s brand.

Brand architecture

Laying solid foundations before building

The structuring of brand architecture is perhaps the phase in which the co-production character of the corporate branding development process is most evident. At this point, our professional experience compliments the client’s own knowledge regarding the entity and the context in which it operates. To the extent that the client is clear about the organization and its strategic projection, the structuring of a more suitable and as such, more effective and enduring, brand architecture will be possible.

In a rich universe formed by the possible typological combinations of identifying symbols, visual styles, different brand articulations and functions; knowing which «ingredients» to use and in what proportions to combine these is an intense intellectual exercise that precedes any visualization task. Clear ideas generate consistent visual systems.

At ArnulfoGráfico Estudio we emphasize interaction with the client in the phases of conceptualization, project scheduling and brand architecture planning, as we are convinced that the most resistant architectures are those with solid foundations.